Do Footballers Get Salary Playing For National Teams ?

Rahim Sterlings transfer to Manchester City is the most expensive for 20 year old where he will be pocketing £180,000-a-week salary with Man City and if you look at average salary in premier league its around £30,000- £35,000 a week which is insane amount of money. Some top rated players like Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are making as much as £30 million a year with their club contracts and endorsement deals. But what about the salaries of players playing for their national teams ? the answer to this question is “Yes” they do get paid but way less than what they make with their respective clubs.

Do Footballers Get Paid To Play For National Teams ?

National team competitions are run and overlooked by FIFA and every country’s football federation (FA) is responsible for structuring the national team setup. FIFA pays/distribute money among all federations through either prize money or development payments. But how much federation pay to their national players is not dictated by FIFA. The decision to pay salary (and how much) to players playing in national team is totally upto the individual federations. So different football federations around the world pay different salaries/match fees to their players. Most of the big footballing nations (England, Germany, Italy, France etc pay a small match fee to players plus bonuses which are explained below.

England players match fees/Bonuses:

English FA has installed a match fee and competition winning bonus system to compensate players in the national team setup. English FA usually pay England players around

£1500 for winning a match qualifier/friendlies

£1000 for a draw

£500 for a defeat.

While for competition likes World Cup and Euro Championship basic match fees goes up plus a certain bonus for every player incase England wins the competition. For example during 2014 FIFA World Cup English FA paid £2,500 for every match a player started the game while rest of the squad pocketed £1,500 for every game regardless of playing in the game or not. Plus there was a hafty bonus (£650,000) for each squad memeber if England were to win the world cup.

According to some sources English players donate their all match fees and incentives earned from national team to charities one of which is orgnized by England players themselves called “England Footballers Foundation support Cancer Research”

Every player in German World Cup 2014 winning squad was rewarded with 900,000 euros as a bonus.

English players will pocket £1500 for winning every Euro 2016 qualifier game, £1000 for drawing and £500 for lose. Plus all traveling expensive are covered by English FA for both home and away games. While English FA also promised £750,000 bonus to every player if they can win the Euro 2016.

German FA also has the similar incentive based structure and every player of Germany national team gets paid a match fee which is not disclosed. While German FA paid €900,000 euros for winning the 2014 FIFA World Cup and they are offering the same amount if Germany were to win the 2016 Euros.

Spain will also pay around €850,000 to every squad member if they were to win Euro 2016. Here are how some of the other federations are offering competitions winning bonuses.

England – £750,000 each

Germany – €900,000 each

France – €1 million each

Spain – €850,000 each

Belgium – €1 million each

there are more than 190 football federations and its difficult to get the info what every federation pay to their national team players. As far as the big nations are concerned the match fee is pretty low compared to players own contracts with clubs.